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November 2013

West Sussex Authors

We’re passionate about West Sussex and so we heartily recommend the following books by local authors...

The Suburban Cage, Book 1,

by Marion Kille

Like Name, like Author,

Marion Kille has the right name – and it’s no nom de plume – to cook up a story that’s half Fifty Shades and half the kind of psychological introspection that Minette Walters does so well.

Kille also has ability – an ability to keep you turning the pages until it has gone 2am and you have to force yourself to put the book down and get some sleep before the early-morning alarm goes off. Billed by promoters as erotica, Kille is keen for the first of her planned Suburban Cage trilogy (yes, this is just the start) to be seen as a crime thriller and not merely a bit of literary titillation on the side. But, set on the author’s home turf of Chichester with haunts locals will recognise, the story opens with a woman whose every move is dominated by a man from bedroom to kitchen. She cannot even go to the toilet without his permission.

She, Rosemary, is a beautiful, young girl about to leave school for university. She is adored by her family and seemingly safe among friends and schoolmates. But Kille wants to show us what can happen when a man develops an obsession for someone far above his own hopes in the ordinary scheme of things. Things can turn bad, very bad indeed. Since the reader discovers Rosemary in captivity from the first paragraph, it is no plot spoiler to say that her tormentor Richard borrows his boss’s van, drugs her and abducts her from a nightclub in Chichester with the bizarre plan of forcing her to be his ‘wife’.

But somewhere out there beyond the microcosmic world imposed by Richard on Rosemary and never giving up hope, is handsome Police Constable Adam Kent. Like Rosemary, Adam is also a victim to his own good looks. An ambitious copper with a passing resemblance to Robert Redford, while he burns a candle for the teenage girl he once bumped into before she inexplicably vanished, he himself is hunted down – by the daughter of his boss determined to own him body and soul.Kille is married to a policeman so she knows her stuff in that department. The Suburban Cage’s plot encompasses comment on how isolated we are as a society, where you can live in a street not realising a young woman is being held prisoner in the house next to door, to exploring the uneasily ticklish subject of Stockholm Syndrome, the bond that develops between a prisoner and their captor. It may leave you feeling a little tarnished and grateful to be away from the workings of the mind of someone like its main character, Richard. But there’s plenty to keep you going with twists and turns that include a murder, an escape and, ultimately, revenge. There’s a happy ending of sorts. But you’ll have to stay up till 2am to find out.Reviewed by Allis Moss

We can now get our teeth into Marion Kille's latest addition to her Chichester-set Suburban Trilogy. The second in the series, The Suburban Coven is now available in paperback and as an e-book. The story delves into the murky world of witchcraft in Sussex and is touted as another page-turner.

Set in the Caribbean, 1950s-2000, follow these old wives tales and events of the day... as seen through the eyes of three ten year old children and passionately debated by them as they meet for play.

Journey with the tales... as adventure, discovery, conflict, loyalty, and mystery enfolds the three children’s imagination running wild.

Fifty years later the three – Jonas, Sabrina and Ramesh, meet again... What happens next..?

Her childrens’ fiction debut, Gayle Honeycombe will keep young readers (and older ones too for that matter) utterly gripped. Exciting, funny and imagination-firing, this book has much to recommend it.

The Widow’s Redeemer

by Philipa Jane Keyworth. Madison Street

Well written, intelligently plotted and pace perfect, Philipa Jane Keyworth’s delightful first novel is perfect for snuggling up on the sofa with over the festive season.

A penniless young widow with an indomitable spirit and a wealthy viscount with an unsavoury reputation – the key ingredients for a rattling good regency read! Country girl Letty Burton has lost her husband. Coming up to London with her domineering mother-in-law she wishes more than anything to conceal her past and to navigate London Society as a silent companion. But a chance meeting with London’s most eligible bachelor sets in motion a series of events that will bring her quiet life under unfriendly scrutiny…

Accompanied by apt quotations at the start of each chapter, The Widow’s Redeemeris rich in detail and colour, but never at the expense of its narrative focus. An accomplished debut.

Bognor Regis gets a lot of stick these days. But as this book delights in telling us, there was a time when the town was felt even more respectable than Chichester.

This book is one for the local history fanatics, but will interest anyone interested in the town’s history.

The story begins in the 1780s with the laying of a foundation stone by Sir Richard Hotham (of Hotham Park fame), for a ‘public bathing place’ at Bognor.

While much of Bognor Regis may be unrecognisable to the modern eye, there are some incredibly well-preserved features detailed, notably Hotham Park House and The Alexandra Pub in London Road, which dated back to the 1860s.

Meanwhile, the changing facades of some of Bognor’s businesses reflect wider social change: Wilmott’s Garage in Aldwick now sells Kia Motors, where it once displayed the Austin Rover badge.

It is the book’s pictures that really bring its story alive. They’ll delight anyone who has grown up in the area - but be warned: many ‘then and now’ shots will have you questioning town-planning decisions. For example, in place of the town’s first ever police station – built in the 1860s from brick and flint – now stands a rather less impressive 1930s row of shops.

Overall, though, this is a fine reminder of Bognor Regis’s remaining good points, including Hotham Park, the impressive railway station and the Steyne, to name but a few.

It may not be destined to become a best-seller, but for those who know the area, this book will certainly evoke fond memories.

Reviewed by Simon English

Striking Out

A fascinating new memoir about life in England’s dreary 1950s, Horsham’s Robert Matthews may not be a household-name celebrity, a legendary sportsman or a heinous criminal, but he led a life few others could boast and many will envy…

His new autobiography Striking Out only covers a five year period but is an incredible story and thoroughly absorbing. It starts in 1949, when Robert had just finished his boarding school education in the Himalayas and was desperate to leave Pakistan to head for England, but that always looked as though it was an impossible dream.

Fate intervened, though in the hated form of his mother's lover, a colonel in the British Army, who gave him good cause to strike senseless one day.

The wonderful result was that Robert’s elder brother and he were dispatched to England by air, ten days later, with very little cash and nowhere to stay.

“My story tells of how a member of the House of Lords attempted to seduce me the day after I arrived in England,” says Robert “and of my many adventures and misadventures along with the numerous, extraordinary jobs I accepted just to survive.” He was involved in hazardous experiments relating to the atomic bomb and assessing psychopaths for a mad psychiatrist while, at the same time, harboring an ambition to become a professional singer.

He won talent competitions, fronted a well-known big band, had a screen test for the part of Romeo in the movies and developed a close friendship with Barbara Andrews and her daughter, the famous Julie.

Striking Out also has the recurrent theme of Robert’s obsessive pursuit of the opposite sex and many failed attempts to lose his virginity.

Helen Christmas is a West Sussex-based author. Her book, Beginnings: Same Face Different Place, is the first in a series of dark and fast-paced thrillers.

Set in the criminal underworld of 1970s London Eleanor Chapman is only 16 when she discovers her Father, Oliver, is employed in a world of organised crime. The day he is forced to go on the run, she is left to the mercy of dangerous people. But during a short spell in captivity, she stumbles across another prisoner - a mysterious musician from Holland, named Jake. Jake is the one vital witness to a scene leading to a devastating car bomb which claimed the life of a British MP. Now those responsible want him silenced.

Their daring escape, coupled with a terrifying chase across London, places them in even greater danger until they eventually find a place to hide. Yet they know that out there somewhere, a lethal contract killer is hunting them. And the conspiracy runs deep. But as two young people thrown together by fate, they develop feelings for each other. Their powerful love bond will keep you turning the pages as you relive their journey; a story of survival in a secret world full of dangerous enemies.

Another new book researched, written and produced through the efforts of three Goodwood flying enthusiasts, To War in a Spitfire is a unique diary account of an American Spitfire pilot during WW2.

The untold story, Lt Harry Strawn, 309th Squadron of the 31st Fighter Group, kept a meticulous diary throughout this period, not only detailing the flying, but also encompassing his social and political feelings. Using personal diaries and his many letters home, this work follows Harry’s life as one of the pilots with the 309th Fighter Squadron experiencing combat for the first time.

Recreated as written, including punctuation, grammar and slang, American spellings have generally been changed to British and some repetition edited out. However, what follows is a primary source document of Lt Strawn’s experiences, thoughts and emotions.

Proceeds of this book are going to the RAF Association and for the Harry Strawn flying scholarship to be setup at the Goodwood Flying School for a lucky Air Training Corp member of the Bognor Air Training Squadron.

David Palmer knows that working at the ASPAR nuclear power plant can be a stressful enough job without the hassles of juggling an affair with a younger colleague. However, his lustful impulses are soon to be the least of his problems.

When his superiors dismiss his concerns about a problem with the nuclear power plant’s cooling fluid, David is the only one who believes that a catastrophe may occur at any moment. To make matters worse, a group of anti-nuclear protestors threaten to make things even more unstable when a demonstration gets out of hand. Outside, a freak storm terrorises the surrounding coastline. And as if all that wasn’t bad enough, his wife has just found out about the mystery woman at work …

52 Favourite West Sussex Walks

by local author Richard Williamson.

Pack your sarnies, pull on your walking boots and get out and explore our glorious county – with with Spirit FM on your iPod, of course!

Published by Summersdale, 52 Favourite West Sussex Walks is available from all good booksellers, priced £9.99

Rock 'n' Roll Murders

by Barabara Bothwell

Rustington author Barbara Bothwell specialises in what she describes as ‘cosy crime’. Published as e-books, Barbara’s work includes Rock ‘n’ Roll Murders. Set in 1958 on the South Coast, when Elvis was doing Military Service, the band Long John Silver and the Pirates are enjoying a successful summer tour. And then one of their crew is killed…

Spirit FM sends birthday wishes to Chichester Festival Theatre this summer, as well as congratulations on the just-published book that has been written to mark the occasion.

Written by the international bestselling author, Kate Mosse – and based on interviews with many of the key people who have made CFT what it is today – Chichester Festival Theatre at Fifty is a celebration of one of Britain’s most important and best loved theatres. The roll call of stars who have appeared there is breathtaking; from Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright in the 1960s to Patrick Stewart and Kim Cattrall fifty years later. This is a fascinating book and a wonderful memento. You can purchase Chichester Festival Theatre at Fifty fromunbound.co.ukor from the Theatre Box Office on 01243 781312.